It isn’t only Sheinbaum. Meet the women who run Mexico.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico inaugurates its first female president on Tuesday, reaching the milestone before its northern neighbor. Even if the United States elects Kamala Harris as president in November, it will lag well behind this traditionally macho country on broader gender parity.

The incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will govern with a cabinet that is half female and a Congress evenly divided between men and women. Women head the supreme court and central bank, and run top federal ministries.

Mexico has become a global leader in gender parity thanks to aggressive laws establishing quotas for women in politics and government. They have had dramatic impact. Mexico's legislature ranks fourth in the world for female representation , while the United States is No. 70 — just behind Iraq — according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Here are some of the women who run Mexico:

Claudia Sheinbaum, 62, president Sheinbaum was elected president on June 2 with nearly 60 percent of the vote, the biggest victory since the one-party system gave way to democracy in 2000.

She grew up in an intellectual, politically active family. Her mother, Annie Pardo, is a prominent biologist. Sheinbaum is also Mexico's first Jewish president.

Sheinbaum earned a PhD, in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), with postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She became active in politics as a leader of student protests at UNAM. When Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected Mexico City mayor in 2000, he named her head of the environment department. Sheinbaum won the mayorship herself in 2018.

She married a financial analyst and former college classmate, Jesús María Tarriba, last year and has a daughter and stepson from a previous marriage.

"Never again should we hear the statement, 'You're prettier when you stay silent,'" Sheinbaum said at a recent event with women. "Those days are over in our country."

Norma Piña, 64, chief justice Piña was just 8 years old when her father, the attorney general of Hidalgo state, died in a helicopter accident. She and her two sisters grew up in an all-female household.

"We didn't have a situation where 'the man does this, the woman does that,'" she recalled in an interview with La Chávez, a popular YouTube program. "Women did everything."

She studied law at UNAM and married a fellow student. She described making a fundamental point about equality when she and her husband decided to split the housework — an unusual arrangement in this conservative country. "My husband said, 'Hey, I'll help you make the bed,'" she said, recalling her response: "The bed has to be made. Either you do it or I do it, but don't 'help' me."

She later earned a doctorate in law. After three decades in the judicial system, she became Mexico's first female president of the Supreme Court of Justice in January 2023. She has been a vocal defender of the court as it come under fire for blocking some key initiatives of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Luisa María Alcalde, 37, head of Morena Alcalde grew up in politics. She's the daughter of a prominent labor lawyer, Arturo Alcalde, and a leftist politician, Bertha Luján, who was comptroller general of Mexico City when López Obrador was mayor.

Alcalde was still in her teens when she got involved in López Obrador's leftist political movement. By age 24, she was serving in the federal Congress. Seven years later, in 2018, she became the youngest woman to serve in a Mexican cabinet, when López Obrador named her labor minister. In 2023, she was appointed government minister, traditionally seen as the top cabinet post.

She holds a law degree from UNAM and a master's in law from UC Berkeley.

Being young and female in a political system historically dominated by older men has been a challenge. "Sometimes I think that being young is even more complicated, in terms of being taken seriously," she told Milenio TV.

She is a leading member of a new generation of leftists asserting themselves in Mexican politics. When she won the presidency of Morena at an assembly on Sept. 22, she was wearing jeans.

Victoria Rodríguez Ceja, 46, governor, Bank of Mexico The little-known finance official became Mexico's first female central bank chief in 2022. "We want women's participation, we want this change to happen," López Obrador said in nominating her.

Rodríguez, who holds a master's degree in economics from the elite College of Mexico, started working on debt issues in the Mexico City government in 2001, while López Obrador was mayor. She was undersecretary of spending in the city government from 2012 to 2018, and then held the same position in the federal government.

Women head just 16 percent of the world's 185 central banks , according to the London-based Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.

Some Mexican opposition lawmakers complained that Rodríguez didn't have enough experience in monetary policy to become chief of the Bank of Mexico. But the Banker, a British trade publication, named her Latin America's Central Banker of the Year 2024, citing Mexico's restrictive policies to fight inflation.

Clara Brugada, 61, mayor of Mexico City The mayorship of the capital is often seen as the second-most-important political job in Mexico and a springboard to the presidency.

Brugada grew up in Mexico City, but when she was 15, her father died and the family moved to the poor southern state of Chiapas. She has said she was profoundly moved by the inequality there and decided to study economics.

As a student at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, she volunteered at a school in a marginalized neighborhood, San Miguel Teotongo, and decided to move there. She became a community leader. By her early 30s, she was a local legislator, and was later elected to the national Congress. She served three terms as president of Mexico City's largest borough, Iztapalapa.

"I decided to not get married, and not have kids, but to dedicate myself to transforming the life of my community," she told journalist Adela Micha. "And I'm happy."

Her cabinet is made up of 10 men and 11 women. "All the departments will have a feminist perspective," she said.

Rosa Icela Rodríguez, 65, government minister As government minister, Rodríguez coordinates political affairs for the executive branch with the legislature and local governments.

She studied journalism and worked for several years in radio and newspapers, including the leftist La Jornada. She then moved into government, working for the leftists who have controlled Mexico City since 1997.

Seen as a low-key political survivor, she held senior jobs in security and social development under three mayors, including López Obrador, who governed the city from 2000 to 2005. After Sheinbaum became the first woman elected mayor in 2018, she named Rodríguez her government secretary.

In 2020, Rodríguez became the first woman to serve as security minister in a presidential cabinet. She led monthly presentations on the security situation during López Obrador's news conferences.